


A bard's tale

by Arayne



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Jaskier has loved Geralt for ten years, M/M, Mild Spoilers, Pining, Requited Unrequited Love, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22022857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arayne/pseuds/Arayne
Summary: Geralt's trauma is immense; lost love, lost lives, lost child. Jaskier has been kicked out of the Temple school at the age of fourteen. It is inadequate, by god even obscene, perhaps, to speak of woe as though he has any clue of what that word might mean.Yet he will.This is a bard’s tale, after all.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 48
Kudos: 924
Collections: Interesting Character and/or Interesting Relationship Development





	A bard's tale

**Author's Note:**

> contains minor spoilers for Lady of the Lake, but most is my own invention.

The most traumatic event Jaskier has ever had to experience was being kicked out of the temple school at the age of fourteen. Geralt’s most traumatic experience is only one of any; abandoned by his mother at the age of six, forcefully being fed potions so his body could mutate, visiting Triss’ grave, dying at the hands of an angry mob, losing Yennefer to those same hands and the scare of Ciri's disappearance.

It is inadequate, by god even obscene, perhaps, to speak of woe as though he has any clue of what that word might mean. 

Yet he will. 

This is a bard’s tale, after all. 

* * *

_Ten years ago_

Ten years ago he’d been a fresh-faced recent graduate from Oxenfurt, eager to travel the world and even more eager to stick his cock into whichever fair woman that came his way. Oxenfurt hadn’t been very kind to co-ed rooms and certainly hadn’t encouraged students to broaden their horizons. Leaving gave him the freedom to try. 

Freedom bites him in the ass. Four vengeful brothers cannot be appeased, not when he’s knocked one of his personal freedoms up, with only a lute to defend himself with. So he runs. Jaskier has gotten very, very good at running ever since leaving Oxenfurt. 

He ends up in a tavern, as good a hiding spot as any. Ale sadly isn’t free and nobody knows his name (“Master Jaskier? Never heard of ya. Pay up or fuck off.”) so he opts for playing the lute. 

“—So that your lady may get an abortion.”

That doesn’t go too well either. Never one to swallow his pride, he gathers the fruits and vegetables tossed his way but the moment he looks up, there’s Geralt. 

He’s captivating. Jaskier drops the bread he’d been holding, snatches it off the ground to stuff it in his trousers, and wanders over before he can think better of it. 

“I love the way you just sit in the corner and brood.” 

Really? That’s the sentence he went with? He feels a vague sense of panic roil in his gut. In certain circles, it may have been _obscene_ to say that to another man. He ignores the uncomfortable twinge in his stomach, but Geralt seems to ignore him altogether. 

It doesn’t help. 

“Come on, three words or less.” He hates begging, honestly he couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the opinion of any of these cretins but mystery man _has_ to answer him. It’s like being back at Oxenfurt, begging for praise, wanting admiration. 

“They don’t exist.” 

Oh, the creatures. Right. 

“I know who you are.” Jaskier says, as though he hadn’t known his name the second he saw him. As though you can’t pick out a white-haired witcher from a crowd. 

“Geralt of Rivia.” 

That is it then. Jaskier’s fate is sealed. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


_Five years ago_

Jaskier is very, very afraid. The meeting between Yennefer and Geralt has tied them into a promise neither of them is ready for, one that will lead to destruction and unhappiness if Borch is to be believed. 

Jaskier should be worried for his friend’s safety. He _is_ worried for his friend’s safety. 

“Come Geralt, let’s not entertain the witch.” He huffs, pulling Geralt by the arm whenever they cross paths. Yennefer never says a word, it’s only her laughter that digs its way into his back, he is of no consequence to her at all. Geralt’s gaze always strays from him back to her, as though he’d jump at the chance to go back if it wasn’t for Jaskier’s grip on his wrist. 

It’s only a small comfort that Jaskier’s hand can stop him. 

Unfortunately, their paths cross a _lot_. Even though their meeting with Borch, Téa and Véa should have put an end to it. He remembers the look on Yennefer’s face the moment she found out that Geralt had made a wish, that all these coincidences simply added up to a string of fate she was not allowed to cut loose. There had been pure, unbridled rage at the _thought_ of being bound to a man. It should have brought him relief.

It did. Until he saw Geralt’s face. 

Bewilderment bleeds into disappointment bleeds into hurt. It’s subtle, but Jaskier has learned to pick out the subtleties. It’s not hard, once you know. 

He bets Yennefer never cared to learn, given that she stalks away before Geralt has even said one word in his favour. 

“Hey, buddy.” He says, as carefully as he can. “She ain’t worth it. Take it from a guy who’s had _plenty_ of women—” 

“Not _now_ Jaskier.” Following hurt comes acceptance, as quick and painful as death. 

“I’m just saying that you did all you could!” His voice rises because it is a _terrible_ expression on Geralt’s face; one so open like morning dew, watery and cold, there and gone the next. Vulnerability is not a good look on him. Yennefer doesn’t have the right to give Geralt hope, only to take it away again. “You saved her from the Djinn!” 

“I said not now!”

Jaskier stops dead in his tracks. 

The expression on Geralt’s face now reminds him of that fateful day. That _awful_ fucking day where he couldn’t sleep for days, for weeks, and it lead him to Yennefer. He remembers the anger, threaded through every syllable, the venom, dripping with every word, but this is something a nap cannot fix. 

“Jeez, sorry.” It cuts him, when Geralt acts like that. He has been there for the witcher far more often than Yennefer has, he has certainly hurt him less. 

Jaskier is scared for his friend, true. 

But it’s hard to pretend to merely have Geralt’s best interests at heart when a part of him feels victorious at _finally_ having cast the witch out. It is at the realisation that _finally_ has been a year or two coming, long before Borch told them of Geralt’s inevitable doom. _Finally_ comes in the shape of a Djinn and a frenzied fuck that he hadn’t wanted to witness. _Finally_ is the word he runs through his head over and over again whenever Yennefer has left the picture. _Finally_ smells like lilac and gooseberries. 

They move on. After a terse silence, Jaskier begs Geralt for a ride. 

“Let me on your horse.” 

His definition of begging has certainly changed over the last few years. 

Geralt, begrudgingly, lets Jaskier sit behind him. 

It’s captivating, the way he looks under the sun with gold streaking through the white. His skin has gone tan, a stark contrast with the leathers in which he dresses, the swords glinting on his back. Jaskier has always wanted to ask if he wasn’t _too hot_ , and would have, if not for one small realisation. 

These aren’t innocent questions anymore. 

They are now part of an awful secret. 

* * *

  
_Two years ago_

“Fuck.” 

It is one clean cut above his eyebrow, angled to the left, having missed the intended target of his eye. Currently, it is dipping Geralt’s face in red as it hasn’t stopped bleeding. 

“Geralt!” He shouts. “My god, have you lost sight of your senses? You’re bleeding!” 

He yells because he knows it is his fault. 

He yells because there is nothing he can do, as the perpetrator aims his sword again and Jaskier has to dive inside a bush in order to evade the blow aimed for his head. Moments later, there’s the clash of swords again. 

“Why on earth did you sleep with his wife?!” 

God, why did he? 

“I did no such thing!” He remembers her. Long silver hair, ample bosom and a cunning smile. Wenches his own age hadn’t seemed to satisfy him, but she had caught his eye. He refuses to think of the implications. “I merely kept the lady company!” 

Geralt hates getting involved in petty human squabbles. He hates it and Jaskier knows it, yet has never stopped asking for his help. “Oh I’m _sure_ your cock has kept her great company indeed!” 

Jaskier would like to protest but any chance is drowned out by a furious clash of swords. They ring in his ears long after the last of it is done, long after the ground drinks up its fill of blood, until Geralt marches right over to his hiding spot and hauls him up to his feet. 

He looks at the ugly scab on his face, blood glistening around the split in his skin. “What were you thinking?” Jaskier reaches up to touch it, but Geralt snatches his wrist. “Answer me!” 

“Just because you don’t _feel_ like any other man does—” Jaskier huffs, though he has no right to, though his heart has yet to climb down from his throat back into the empty cavity of his chest. “I had a need, she filled it, we enjoyed ourselves!” 

He keeps her appearance to himself. Though he’d be lying to himself if he thought grey hair could be an adequate replacement for Geralt. For one, she was grinning at him. She was also twice his age, teased him about issues of a different kind. She wouldn’t have known, not with the reputation he has continued to build. 

“I’m sick and tired of saving your ass, Jaskier.” 

* * *

_Eight months ago_

“What — What do you mean?” He doesn’t even remember where he is, the world slipping and tilting at the edges. His vision is going blurry. The words don’t make sense, he can’t anchor them, they slip from his grasp like water. “What do you mean Zoltan?!”

“He’s dead, Jaskier.” 

No. No. No no no no — 

“You’re lying! It’s Geralt _of Rivia_ for God’s sake!” 

“By the Eternal Fire, I saw ‘im get pricked with a pitchfork, right through the chest!” Zoltan’s voice rises as does the bile in Jaskier’s throat. “I’m sorry lad, he’s dead.”

“Why didn't you help him?! Why did you leave—” 

“For _fuck’s_ sake Jaskier, it was a pogrom!” 

Triss hasn’t said a word. She sits in the corner, wringing a piece of cloth in her hands, staring blankly ahead when Zoltan does the talking. The both of them had been there. They had witnessed it.

“It was a massacre.” She finally says. When she looks up, her eyes are red-rimmed and her mouth is trembling. “A peasant stabbed him, he made no attempt to fight back.”

“What about the witch then? What did _she_ do?” This can’t be happening. He grabs onto the one constant thing in his life; _Yennefer_. It has to be her fault. She was there, was she not? She’s a sorceress, is she not? How could she stand by and let the love of her supposed damn life die right before her eyes?! “I guess it is all just as well then, she is finally rid of the wish! Geralt of Rivia is dead and she’s released!” 

“Yennefer _died,_ Jaskier!” She yells at him. “She died healing him!” 

His face goes white. 

“She died?” 

No. No that can’t be. It’s Yennefer of Vengerberg; hell would spit her right back out, fearful it may have to deal with another contender for the throne. 

She cannot be dead too. 

“She died, Jaskier.” Triss is barely holding it together. Her nails dig into the palms of her small hands, now that she’s let go of the cloth. He dares not ask what it is, black with blood. 

“Where… The bodies — They must…”

“Gone.” Zoltan says. “Ciri took them.” 

“Ciri’s gone too?” 

“She’s gone, lad.”

How is he meant to mourn without a body? He barely registers hitting the floor. It’s all a blur. Everything feels cold, then warm, and it takes him a second to realise that’s him. It’s the tears going down his face, warming up his cheek, leaving his skin cold when they dry and then run again. 

Geralt is dead. 

There is not even a body for him to bury. Jaskier has never been a big believer in Melitele’s teachings, but he worries for the afterlife now. Will a killer be allowed in the afterlife? A mutant? A _freak_? 

“He’s _more than that_!” He screams until his throat is raw. He feels hands on him, trying to steady him, and he fights them off clumsily. He keeps going, his muscles trembling with exertion and grief, until he tastes iron at the back of his tongue. The thrum of magic is heavy in the air. Triss. Betrayal burns an extra scar into his heart. Geralt is his best friend, his confidante, his muse, his— 

Hours later, when they have forced him in bed with a potion down his throat, the realisation comes to him in a dream.

Geralt is every desire Jaskier has ever had, wrapped up in a package of muscle and steel. It was a desire long before he knew what to name it, the moment he set eyes on him in that grimy bar back in Vengen. 

Jaskier is in love with a corpse. 

  
  


* * *

_Five months ago_

Grief consumes him. 

He talks to Triss and discovers the grief of a lover. It is all-encompassing, deep, raw. It never leaves her. She sits in window sills, touching the scrap of fabric she'd gathered from Geralt's corpse; a tangible piece of him that Jaskier will never own. It is a lover's grief and Jaskier realises he's never been that. 

He talks to Zoltan and discovers the grief of a friend, close and painful and personal. Zoltan seeks to upend his grief in dwarven spirits, drinks and plays cards until the dark encroaches upon them both. But even drunk, he toasts Geralt’s name with every drink, shares his name with the world outward instead of deep within. But Jaskier hasn’t quite the strength for _that_ either. Now that Geralt is dead, he keeps that hurt close and personal, does not let a lyric touch his name. 

He’s not a lover and a friend does not feel right either. He’s stuck in purgatory with no escape either way, just an endless chasm that swallows him and his feelings whole. 

He goes back to Vengen, travels all the way to the end of the world with only a lute given by Toruviel for company. He walks through the tall grass and smells the air as though it can replicate what no longer exists. He remembers this day, remembers their first meeting, can touch Geralt if he wishes through this area that once held his image. 

If he just retraces his steps, perhaps he can commit it to memory. 

But the end of the world has turned into beautiful _Dol Blathanna_ , negiotiated by Franscesca only months before Geralt’s demise. He has never gotten to see it. It has gone from valley, to battlefield, to kingdom to duchy. As such, the Valley of Flowers provides him with nothing more than whispers. Jaskier is an outsider, a filthy _Dh'oine_ that has no business being in sacred land. An arrow flies and grazes his cheekbone. 

“I have every business to be here!” He yells at no one in particular. 

“You should leave, Dh’oine.” 

“My friend died!” Jaskier yells, as though it will make a difference. “He’s gone and I can’t get him back, there is not even a body. Please, Melitele help me, please let me honour him here.” 

The whispers stop. 

There is only one line whispered in the air around him, the thrum of magic thick and coiling around him. 

“Geralt of Rivia.” 

Franscesca herself never makes an appearance but after her words, Jaskier is allowed his grief. No more whispers come, no more arrows fly, and Jaskier is left with the chasm that is left in their absence. The land has seen so many alliances, but Geralt has remained unwavering and unchanged. A witcher never chooses if he can choose not to choose at all. 

Yet his refusal to choose has lead to the ultimate choice; death. 

Now that he is gone, he is gone from here too. It is difficult to imagine him here, along the flowers, difficult to imagine him very much at all. 

At night he lies down in a field of dandelions. 

In the morning, he is gone. 

  
  


* * *

_One day ago_

He lives. 

“Am I losing my mind?” Jaskier’s voice is a husk, an echo chamber from which the same question repeats itself over and over again. _How_? Geralt is there, he’s a little unsteady on his feet, but he is right there in Vizima. 

Triss embraces him, arms tight around his shoulder, a half-sob on her lips. Jaskier walks four paces, then stumbles back again and the moment his ass collides with the floor, all eyes are upon him. 

In particular a pair of cat-eyes that he have haunted him ever since they disappeared from this world.

“Geralt!”

“Jaskier.” 

He never thought he’d miss that voice until the moment it was gone. He doesn’t get up, only sits there until Geralt has moved within his direct line of sight and then curls his arms around his legs and cries. 

“What the hell Jaskier?” Jaskier cannot see his expression when his face tastes leather, but he thinks Geralt’s tone is exasperated but fond. “Jaskier, I’m fine. I’m here.”

He chokes on a sob and the tavern is full of laughter. He can hear their boisterous cries of surprise, their sneers, their jokes at his expense whilst he’s smearing snot over the fabric of Geralt’s legs. 

They would think it’s simply him, dramaticized it as though losing one’s dearest friend and having him return is anything short of a miracle. As though only Triss has the right to cry because she at least had the opportunity to fuck him. 

Finally, Geralt hoists him to his feet and Jaskier, always one full foot smaller than Geralt, pulls himself into his chest. 

“You are never allowed to die again.” 

This time he omits the joke that usually follows; _‘How else will I compose my ballads_?’. It sounds dangerously close to a muse. 

His songs had dried up months ago. His voice had refused to work, caught and trapped like a hare, it had no one to set it free; it only waited for a slow and painful death. Geralt may have died, but he has taken Jaskier’s voice hostage with him. 

That night is different. 

Geralt has taken up board upstairs, Triss in tow, to be checked over for latent traces of magic. Once the initial shock has worn off, it is all the tavern talks about. 

_Did you hear, Ciri healed him. Ciri saved him_.

He drinks until his breath is warm and sweet. He drinks until his body has cast off the heavy burden Geralt has let him bear. His voice betrays him, always a touch too happy, a touch too _much_. It isn’t until he climbs onto the bar, lute slung over his shoulder, voice climbing much higher as his voice breaks free: 

“ _When a humble bard,_ _  
_ _Lost his dearest friend,  
__Geralt of Rivia,  
__He could not relent._

 _He had died alone,  
_ _Deserted in the street,  
_ _No way to find him,  
_ _I conceded defeat.”_

He had written these right after Dol Blathanna. Although the landscape had changed and he had not found Geralt there, that night under the stars he had decided that he _could_ change the legacy of their first meeting;

_‘Toss a coin to your witcher’_

He had never gotten further than the first two depressing couplets, his voice had shattered like glass beneath the weight of it. He had swallowed the pieces whole until his throat was too raw to continue, until the song reminded him of nothing but the pain he’d taken up inside of himself. 

But now, they came forth under the dim light of an oil lamp, and it means _everything_. 

_“Here he stands before,  
__us quite whole again,_ _  
_ _It’s not easy to kill him,_ _  
_ _A witcher’s no man._ _  
_ _With a body like a god,  
__And eyes of animal make,  
__He has returned now,  
__So does my heart ache.”_

He inhales, deeply, laughing. 

_“Toss a coin to your Witcher  
_ _O’ Valley of Plenty  
_ _O’ Valley of Plenty  
_ _O’  
_ _Toss a coin to Your Witcher  
_ _O’ Valley of Plenty.”_

He continues way into the night. He is much too drunk and sings off-key for most of it, but the tavern hums along and joins for even the raunchiest couplets his heart has come up with. Words about Geralt’s arms, wound snug around his waist, sentences praising his reflexes, it is all laid bare under the fine haze of alcohol when people keep buying him more. 

But it is only one pair of eyes that may light up in the darkness of a room when the clock strikes midnight and even drunk him concedes defeat in an undignified rush to his rooms, prized lute forgotten at the bar. 

He doesn’t get much sleep that night. 

* * *

“Jaskier.” 

It is early morning and Jaskier is retrieving the lute from where he left it, thanking Melitele for protecting a love-sick fool like him. He freezes, then hurries along twice as quickly.  
  
“No-no my fickle friend! I must take my leave now, can’t dawdle!” Panic seizes him by the throat, spurring his limbs into disarray as he stumbles his way to the door. “We can’t all be as idle as you are, some of us have —”

“ _Jaskier_.” He finds an arm firmly wrapped around his upper arm and in response, he lets out an undignified shriek. 

“Geralt, as much as I appreciate your need for my company, I have to take my leave.” His voice has become a high and brittle thing; it cracks on the last syllable. 

“I know, Jaskier.” 

His stomach plummets. 

He can't, because liking men meant another scar to his back. Liking men meant being kicked out of the temple school for holding hands with a boy with a smile like thunder and wildfire in his hair. Liking men meant losing, so Jaskier had spent all his time liking women. 

But never loving them. 

“You know what exactly?” He says, nonsensically. “You don’t know anything Geralt, you didn’t even go to school, you never —” 

Geralt groans. He grabs hold of Jaskier’s wrist and pulls him back in forcefully. Jaskier is about to protest, but it dies in his throat when he finds lightning in Geralt’s eyes. He then feels lips pressing insistently against his own, forcing him backwards, forcing him against the wall. His head knocks against it, but the stars he sees are not from the impact. 

He brings up his hands, shifts until his mouth clumsily misses Geralt’s and bites at the corner of his lips. 

It is painful, the pounding in his chest, a heart that does not know what to make out of his world shifting twice in one day. _He’s alive_ , his heart beats, _he’s kissing you_ , it says with every tick that passes them by. This pain is reminding Jaskier of his own life, as though Geralt has blown the vitality back into it. Ten years come pouring out of him, every stolen glance, every stuttered breath, every single time he's looked at Geralt's ass. Fuck, he can touch that now. 

“Shh.” Geralt shushes through an open-mouthed kiss, swallowing a whimper. Jaskier’s breath hitches, eyes fluttering shut. Behind the darkness of his lids, stars explode behind them when he finally reaches back around and squeezes the back of Geralt's trousers. 

It’s tongue and there’s teeth too. He gives as good as he takes, his hands encircle Jaskier’s waist, pressing hot bruises into his skin until Jaskier whines low in his throat. _Do it again_ , he urges, _do it more_. There is no question of kissing him again and again and again until his body memorises his lips by sheer force of will. Until he can recognise Geralt's scent by the taste of his tongue, the curve of his lips, the way one of his legs slots perfectly between his own. 

“Geralt.” It is a desperate plea that wills itself past his lips. “Geralt, we’re—”

“Hm.” 

They kiss and Jaskier wonders why they have never kissed before. Ten years of lost opportunities; given the neediness with which he is kissing Geralt now and how much he is given in turn. He regrets running, even for a moment, because if Geralt had not had the courage (or the indifference to care), then perhaps it would never have come to pass at all. He presses his hand against the flat of Geralt's chest, feeling his heart beat beneath the life line of Jaskier's palm. Two hearts beating as one. Jaskier's beats twice as hard, Geralt's is slow on the uptake; nothing has changed. 

His mouth falls open once more, eagerly and prettily but Geralt pulls away, and Jaskier follows blindly as though lost. Geralt laughs, a rare and scarce thing, and Jaskier’s eyes open slowly. He wonders why he ever, _ever_ , dared to ask Geralt whether he had any emotion at all. 

It is there, plain and open on his face. 

He realises now that vulnerability is not a bad look, not when it is directed at him. 

Geralt thumbs the side of his cheek, presses sharp hips against his own, cushioned only by the softness of Jaskier’s thighs. 

“How long?”

“Years.” He is no longer composed, has cast away his second nature of pretence. “Forever.” 

He slides his hands into silver hair and thinks to himself that this bard’s tale has not concluded. 

It has only just begun. 

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I think watching the TV series solidified the relationship between Geralt and Jaskier for me. I don't think it has ever come up when I read the books _or_ playing the game, but how is one to ignore how adoringly Jaskier looks at Geralt? 
> 
> I wanted to create my piece on their relationship over the span of ten years. 
> 
> Also; 100th fic for this pair is a lovely feat. I hope to see more of them. ♡
> 
> Feel free to find me on [Twitter](http://Twitter.com/Elynnae)!


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